


A loan and a gift

by epersonae



Series: The Director [6]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Backrubs, Blink and you miss 'em, Brief mentions of Julia and Maureen, Crystal Kingdom is made of dramatic irony, F/M, Post-Crystal Kingdom, Stolen Century Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-22
Updated: 2017-11-22
Packaged: 2019-02-05 16:31:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12798216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/epersonae/pseuds/epersonae
Summary: Magnus returns a loaned magic item. Lucretia is bad at accepting gifts. And also at taking advice.





	A loan and a gift

A few days after Candlenights, Lucretia was working in her office when she heard a tentative and somewhat familiar knock on the door.

“Come in,” she said.

The door swung open, and Magnus stood in the doorway with a slightly sheepish expression.

“Hi.”

“I said come in, Magnus. Do you need an engraved invitation?”

“No, no, I guess not.” And with a chuckle he stepped inside and sat in the chair in front of her desk. He fished something out of his pocket and handed it to her: the pendant of farspeech that she’d given him when they went to the Miller’s lab. “I guess this is yours. Sorry I forgot to give it back earlier.”

She tried to still her breathing in her chest as she took it, her hand barely brushing against his.

“Thank you, although I suppose it isn’t of much use anymore. Only Lucas” (only Maureen) “had that attunement.”

“It’s a nice-looking necklace, anyway,” he said. “Um, hey.”

“What is it, Magnus? Is there something else I can help you with?”

“So, I just, you know, want to apologize again for not following your instructions, you know, about the red robe? It really was an honest mistake.” He tapped the side of his head lightly. “Not a super-great memory on this one.”

Her smile felt tight on her face.

“That’s certainly alright. I just need to know —” She paused. “I need to know that you trust me. This is too important for us to be anything less than forthright with one another.”

“Absolutely, boss.” He gave her a little fake salute, like the one he used to give Davenport. Her smile relaxed just a little. He rubbed the back of his head, a little furrow to his brow. “So….”

She raised an eyebrow.

“You know, uh, Candlenights….” He stammered and then stopped.

“I’m familiar with the holiday.”

He laughed.

“Yeah, well, I gave you a gift and you said it wasn’t the time.”

For a half a beat, her face froze in place. She managed to just raise her eyebrow a little higher, not trusting herself to move even another single muscle.

“And I didn’t want you to forget or anything. You know how sometimes you get a gift certificate or whatever for holidays and you say you’re gonna use it but then like three months go by and you take it out and like, half the time it’s already expired….”

She repeated what she’d said before; it was the only thing she could think to say.

“Magnus, I’m your employer. That would be incredibly inappropriate.”

He frowned and shook his head.

“Pardon me, Madame, this might be too forward of me, but I’m pretty sure that’s bullshit.”

“Magnus!”

He shook his head again, more forcefully, and he leaned towards her. She kept her face impassive as she met his gaze head on. She looked hard into his scarred face, the nose knocked crooked — those same warm eyes — he was really serious about this.

“Look, Madame Director, you work harder than any of us. You might not have to fight ghost robots or race battlewagons or whatever, but I see you in here. There’s lights on when everybody else is going to sleep. That’s....” He took a deep breath. She wondered if he’d been practicing this speech. “Director — can I call you Lucretia?” She shook her head slightly. “Okay then, well in any case you need a break once in a while.”

“That seems to be a common opinion,” she said faintly. Already Merle had hinted that he was going to invite her on his spa retreat, and she was seriously considering taking him up on the offer.

He chuckled.

“So, yeah, good. Backrub it is.” He stood and moved around behind her.

She sighed. “Magnus.”

“That’s me,” he replied, hands already resting atop her shoulders, and she sighed again. “Best backrubs in Faerun, that’s what….” He paused, and this time it was his turn to sigh. She bit her lip to keep an apology from slipping out. So many things she was not supposed to know. He continued, “Well, anyway. I give a damn fine backrub, is what I’m saying, if I do say so myself.”

“I'm sure.” Some things she knew for certain, and this was one of them. A backrub from Magnus Burnsides had once been one of her favorite things in all the planes of existence. His thumbs dug into her neck, and she was done for. His fingertips gripped the tops of her shoulders as he began humming tunelessly. It took every last bit of the self-control that she’d spent a decade and more building up to keep from moaning out his name.

“You’re clenching your jaw,” he said quietly. “It’s okay, you can relax for like a minute.”

She huffed. “There’s too much to worry about.”

“Mm-hmm. Yeah.” His hands moved to the outsides of her shoulders, grabbing and releasing, working along the twinging tendons. “I know. Gonna save the whole world. But we’re more than halfway there, right?”

She nodded.

“And if these three idiots manage to do their job, it’ll be taken care of in a jiff, yeah?”

She suppressed a chuckle.

“Yeah, go ahead and laugh. You know it’s a damn miracle. We’re basically too stupid to get caught in the thrall, and we only get to the relics because somebody more competent comes along to help out.”

She sighed, a long sad sigh, holding in her head two awful contradictory images: Merle and Taako japing as they removed the Philosopher’s Stone from Magnus’s gut; Taako whistling glibly as he tucked the stone into his pocket to leave the Starblaster and deposit it into the world below.

“I need you all to stop selling yourselves short,” was all she could manage to say.

He hummed and dug a knuckle in under her shoulder blade. “Works out either way, yeah? But that’s not the point.”

“What  _ is _ the point?” It was getting to be difficult to maintain her dignified demeanor with his hands working over her back and shoulders, but she was going to try.

“Hmm, lean forward.” His hands moved further down her back; she drew in a long breath. “What I’m saying, Madame Director, is that someday all this will be behind you. And you need to start learning to relax now, or….” He paused; she could sense him trying to find the words as he moved his hands back up her spine, hitting all the little pressure points exactly right. “Y’know, we’ll’ve fixed the world and you won’t even know what to do with yourself.”

She allowed a dry chuckle that turned into a bit of a stifled sigh as he gripped her neck again.

“That’s probably good advice,” she said.

He gave one last stroke along the tops of her shoulders then gave her a big pat on the back.

“What me, give good advice? I guess miracles never cease.” He slowly headed for the door, then turned at looked at her, frowning like he was trying to decide whether to say one more thing. “Well, uh, you know, hit me up for another backrub anytime?”

“Thank you, Magnus. I certainly will.”

She wouldn’t though, not until after the end of the world.

**Author's Note:**

> I had an idea for this at the beginning of a relisten to Crystal Kingdom and had to wait to start until I finished, because I honestly couldn't remember if he ever gave her back the pendant that Lucas calls her on in that first episode. Turns out, he doesn't! Which is great for my fic!


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